Talk:1949 Ambato earthquake/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Pgallert (talk) 17:27, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Preliminary results

I did not yet have time for a full review but a few shortcomings I want to list already:

1. Surely the 1949 earthquake did not happen in 1906, as mentioned in the infobox?
2. There are some links to disambiguation redirect pages (at least 10), if someone could please mouse-over all of them and fix?
3. The "Schuster and Egred" reference, could this be more specific? It seems they have written more than one contribution as a team, and also more than one contribution on earthquakes. Title, publisher, and year would be good, ISBN would be even better.

--Pgallert (talk) 17:27, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Fixed #1, my copy & paste error in the infobox, sorted out 7 redirects, which was all I could find, and added full Schuster and Egred ref. Mikenorton (talk) 20:18, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, for some reason I was sure that Richter scale was the article title, thanks for finishing them off. Mikenorton (talk) 15:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think now all links are fine. --Pgallert (talk) 15:41, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Review result

GA review (see here for criteria)

---

(Please bear in mind that this is my first GA review. If I make unreasonable suggestions please make sure you let me know.)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   The paragraph on the geology is well written, particularly the task of representing the rather difficult source text claims in readable prose has been solved well. Two concerns about the prose: First, the article seems to end quite abrupt. See (3) for a suggestion. Second, there are a few contradicting items in the article: (a) The article states that the epicenter was in Ambato but the map does not support that. (b) The article states that the death toll is 5050, but it appears that no way of adding up the individual numbers comes to that amount. (c) How many people died in Pelileo, 1300 or 3200? (d) The entire town of Libertad... Yes, the newspaper headline says so, but in the ref text the place is referred to as "the tiny village". With altogether 100 inhabitants, is "town" the right word? (e) The article says "fissures" were visible in Pelileo (something very small) but the ref says "huge crevices" (f) Section damages and casualties: This is a bit hard to read as the flow of prose swings back and forth between damages and casualties, and between overall assessment ("14 towns", "thirty communities") and assessment by town. Would it make sense to separate the two, and/or consistently go from town to town, and either start, or end, with an overall count? Furthermore some of the numbers could be taken out (perhaps the injuries?), there are so many per paragraph that it is at times hard to follow. In the second paragraph there is a repetition of the word "also".

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   Only very minor concerns here: The "Schuster and Egred" reference still does not add up: This chapter was authored by three other writers, and Schuster and Egred seem to be the editors, see p.29. Considering the rather complicating structure of this ref, would it make sense to (a) use the Cite book template, and (b) consolidate all three refs to this book into one entry? As the text is on three adjacent pages of the book, producing three different refs might be overkill. In Ambato alone, 75 percent of the homes were declared unfit for living -- not supported by the reference, it only states they will have to be torn down.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   The quake itself is sufficiently covered. Hard to pin this one down but as the reader of the article I would be interested in a brief overview over the rebuilding efforts and the situation today: Is the hole still there that Libertad sank into? Which villages were abandoned, which rebuilt? Did people change the way they built structures in this area? -- Very brief, just as an overview. This would be a nice ending to the article as well. A see-also section would be great, pointing possibly to the geology of the region, to earthquakes in general, and to similar or nearby quakes. A conversion of the Ecuadorian sucre, if that can be established for 1949, would be great to put the figure of 250,000 into perspective.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   Pictures nicely illustrate the article. The caption for the Pelileo ruins reads a bit strange; the pic clearly shows the rubble of a few huts, not the devastated city. Should the infobox pic also have a caption?

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   I suggest to place the nomination on hold to allow for improvement of the few points mentioned.

--Pgallert (talk) 15:41, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• Prose - I can re-organize the sections per town, but I'd like to keep the overview section.

  What I mean is this: If you follow the damage report as of today, it goes: Foreshock, Ambato, General damage (in Ambato?), Libertad, Patate and Pelileo, Ambato again, Pillaro, Latacunga, back to Ambato, Pelileo again, General toll, back to Ambato, Aftershock. I find that confusing. That some of the major buildings in Ambato collapsed (overview) is maybe not too surprising, considering that 75% of them had to be demolished. --Pgallert (talk) 13:05, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

• Images - resolved.
• Sources - resolved. ceranthor 15:44, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Will be resolving the rest of the concerns by tonight. Had a conflict the past week and had no access to a computer, unfortunately. ceranthor 16:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The current damage and casualties section is in chronological order, is that confusing? I'm going to add a threats section now. ceranthor 23:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

• The additions are great but I would suggest that the article ends with the "Aftermath" section. What is currently under "Threats" could become a section like "Introduction" between lead and "Geology". I would also suggest to move everything from the end of the "Damage and casualties" section there, starting with At the time it struck. Does that make sense?
• Aah, chronological. Now I understand the organisation of this section but it took me a while :) In this case, the Some thirty communities had been strongly ... does not really fit, and the raising the total death toll estimates to roughly 4,000 people could maybe be reformulated to something like and the total death toll had to be adjusted to 4,000 (Otherwise it appears as if at a later stage some more people died).
• In "Relief efforts", List of heads of state of Ecuador could be a pipe link from "Ecuador's President", not just "President". Otherwise it seems as if you want to explain what a president is.
• The Ecuadorian sucre, can that not be put in relation to a known currency, at least in principle? I read somewhere that this is particularly encouraged for currencies not used anymore. (Possibly not a GA requirement but it would be nice to know)

I'll be traveling next week with no Internet access. Will come back to you on Friday or Saturday. --Pgallert (talk) 00:27, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Everything should be fixed except for the currency, which I'm trying to sort out. ceranthor 22:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Can't find anything. :( ceranthor 19:35, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

That's not a make-or-break item. Still, I have posted a request at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Numismatics#Historical_exchange_rate_for_the_Ecuadorian_sucre.3F, maybe one of the members can help. Will look over the improvements this weekend. --Pgallert (talk) 17:53, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

The facts are actually already on WP in Ecuadorian sucre: 13.5 sucre were equivalent to 1 US$ in 1946, and it was devaluated to 15:1 in 1950. Unfortunately the references are not inline and not available online. Could not find any other source except WP mirrors, and it seems there's not going to be a response from Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics. Whether you want to put this info in without a source I leave to your judgement; personally I prefer a little OR over an unreadable text. Not suggesting you break WP policy but to discount the WP:V concerns with WP:AGF that the offline refs indeed support all claims in the Ecuadorian sucre article. --Pgallert (talk) 09:36, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Lead section

Okay, the article's body is now fine. I tweaked a few minor things. Just one more question, the festival of fruit and flowers--if that is a proper name it should be capitalised.

For the lead I have made some suggestions right in the article. The very first sentence does maybe not have to contain the boldface article title (MOS supports the possibility). I felt the flow of prose is better this way, please revert if you do not like it. Further suggestions:

• Whether you put citations in the lead section is up to you. However, (if I understand the policy right) there should not be a need to do that, as everything in the lead should occur further down in the article. As such I would either repeat or move two items down in[to] the article that are currently mentioned only in the lead:
  • Moderate shaking from the event extended to Quito and Guayaquil.
  • the destruction of Guano
• Please review the lead section as I have reworded it. 2 paragraphs are sufficient in my opinion, but I don't want to play dictator ;)

--Pgallert (talk) 13:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Should all be fixed. ceranthor 13:44, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Result

• Pass — I believe the article fulfills all GA criteria and have therefore promoted it today. Congratulations to all contributors, thank you for your work! --Pgallert (talk) 14:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)